Culture Shock Part Dos: Adventures

When getting to know a new country, there is always inevitably some kind of learning curve. In my first week, I’ve definitely learned a few important lessons: 1) Don’t trust guys with directions. 2) When everyone gets out of a bus, follow them. 3) Not every person who wears a UC Davis shirt goes to UC Davis. …I’ll explain.

Friday night in a city right outside Toledo, my roommate Cecily and I decided to avoid the overcharging hotel restaurant, and go in search of a supermercado to make ourselves dinner. It started as Ryan [from Ohio] and Teo [from Colorado]’s idea, and we made the mistake of deciding to follow them. (Since of course they “knew where they were going.”)

We walked south of the hotel onto what looked like a sidewalk, but after a few hundred feet, it started getting thinner and thinner. Cecily and I were wondering why the sidewalk had suddenly disappeared, but they guys insisted we were going the right way. A few hundred feet later, we notice a car driving by – fast. Then another. And another. As we kept walking up this street, we all of a sudden realized that we were walking onto the shoulder of a freeway onramp. [Sorry mom.] Needless to say, that was enough to turn us around.

So after backtracking a bit, we crossed a really sketchy bridge that shook everytime cars passed under it on the freeway, and it dumped us out right next to a lovely junkyard with a large barbed wire fence. The crude map that the hotel concierge had scribbled for Teo indicated that we were close, so we kept waking – until finally we spotted the giant yellow “AhoraMart” sign that we had been looking for.

AhoraMart was definitely no Trader Joes. More like a Wal Mart food section, plus hanging legs of various animals (chicken, pigs, lamb) and people traipsing around with turquoise rolley carts that remind me of those tacky backpacks that were popular back in middle school.We bought ham, (SURPRISE!) and a loaf of white bread (whole wheat does not exist in Spain) coconut yogurt, apples, water, and a bag of Cheetos for the four of us, and it came out to a whopping four euros per person. Talk about a power dinner.

And for my second lesson about getting out of the bus, I think this video will speak for itself. To better understand the context: we were all sleep-deprived, and had a 4 hour bus ride from Toledo to Salamanca to meet our host families. Within ten minutes, everyone (including me) was passed out asleep, and when the bus driver stopped for a break halfway, Cecily and I were slow to wake up and get out. After rolling over and groaning a few times, we both finally got up – then realized that everyone else was gone. We were locked in the bus. And we both had to pee. So while waiting for someone to come back and rescue us, here’s what we did:



After our little dance party, the bus driver came back and let us out (thank God) and we both ran to the rest stop. On my way back out, Jessica [from Florida] mentioned that she saw someone wearing a UC Davis t-shirt in line at the cash register, so I got really excited and decided to go say hello. The guy in question was about 30 years old, Spanish, and absolutely wearing an Aggie blue UC Davis t-shirt. I went up to him and said “Hola! Estudio a la Universidad de California Davis?” [Did you study at UC Davis?] and he looked at me like I was a crazy person. “…No.” he said. Then in Spanish, told me that he had visited California for vacation, and had “found” the shirt as a souvineer. It was very strange and awkward, and I still don’t know what he meant by the fact that he “found” the shirt. But sadly, I’ll never know.